The British Museum

Yesterday I figured before I start working I better go to some of these museums; summer holidays or not. So I went to the British Museum. 

The place is exactly how a museum should be in your minds eye - heaps of neat stuff with information about it. Not wacky earthquake shacks and 'See if you can work a horses leg' interactive exhibits. (Looking at you Te Paps). It was quite overwhelming really, every room there'd be another ancient civilisation. I particularly liked all the stuff about ancient Iran, as I knew pretty much nothing about anything over there. The Americas was really quite interesting too!

Fuck yea! History!

The first thing I headed for was the ancient Egyptian stuff, followed by ancient Greek and Rome. The English sure knew how to pillage priceless artefacts a couple hundred years ago - though they have gone to considerable effort to justify the deeds. And I suspect it's quite right, better things were pinched and archived in England and France than potentially lost forever, sold piecemeal to tourist collectors or smelted down to make cellphones. Still, doesn't sit that well with me - should be all be being shared in some revolving international museum arrangement and owned by their respective nations. I'm sure there's a bit of that going on!

They've got this huge area dedicated to the Parthenon, and the friezes there. Slightly irritating were these awesome scenes of centaur battles, but no-one had a head. Every wee plaque said 'The head is in Athens'. I guess someone decided to put their heads together and that was the best idea, but really. Why don't they send a couple of the friezes to Athens, and Athens sends a couple of heads, so everyone's got a couple of more whole items? Must be a bit boring in Athens, 'Here's another head. The actual scene is in London.'

The history goes straight to your head

After a couple of hours it all gets a bit much - any one item in there would be the biggest deal ever back home, but there's just so much and so many civilisations, and everything has such an interesting story to tell. After being on your feet a few hours, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's heard - 'dude, go get a stuffed potato'. 

So I went out and got a stuffed potato.

After lunch I headed back and made my way around the place. There was no way I was able to soak up even half of what is in there. I did quite enjoy the great hall or whatever they called it, totally old-school. Could see how it was all set back in the day, all these curiosities from all over the globe, British explorers' loot coming in. 

One for Mum and Smelly

Looks familiar

No explanation necessary

I'll just need to go back and commit to only looking at England, or Asia, or whatever - just do the museum in bite sized chunks. It's too much and I did it a real disservice honking through like I did. 

I took the bus home though, which was actually really easy, took twice as long as the tube but it didn't feel like torture. It wasn't rancidly hot, you didn't have to avoid eye contact, and it wasn't ear-splittingly loud. Think I'll take the bus today too. There's an awesome app over here for your phone, for all your travel needs. Citymapper. Absolutely idiot-proof and brilliant!

Only a tourist would take a photo of yourself riding a bus. 

Stonehenge and Bath

Today I took an organised day tour to Stonehenge and Bath with Anderson tours.

An early start getting to London Bridge station for my pickup, then a bit of a tour around London picking people up from different locations across the city. People who work with tourists all day and maintain love are saints, I found the others mostly quite annoying! It was super awesome seeing both these attractions, getting out of London and seeing more of the UK, definitely recommend! Here's some mildly interesting stuff.

We drove by Buckingham Palace, and our tour manager Ross explained why the barbed bit of the fence came about. In 1987? some German tourists were getting pissed, and planned to camp in Hyde Park. They thought the wall was Hyde Park, clambered over the wall and camped out in the Queens garden. They were only discovered after they stumbled upon the queens guard while trying to find an exit! I was quite surprised it took until 1987 to put a top to the wall - innocent times, geez! I wonder if it's more to keep the Queen in and that story is just a have.

Drive-by barbed fence.

Driving on, we arrived at Stonehenge around 11.

A pretty dry-balls audio tour was free to play, as you wandered around the stones. If there was no audio tour you'd be done in like 5 minutes - it's a neat pile of rocks, don't get me wrong! And makes one think about the origins of our civilisation and all that. But yea, still a pile o' rocks. The audio tour even attempted to make the lichen growing on the rocks interesting (there're 19 types!)

This guy was in tune with the spirituality of the place

As the tour guide said, when the Romans discovered stonehenge, they called it ancient too. Goes so far back, these lost civilisations - pays not to think about ours and what our legacy would be. Radiation and a floating garbage island I guess. Here're some more pics.

Good huh! Can't even see any tourists!

All around the site are these mounds, and they're mass graves - heaps of ancient corpses buried around the place.

Was pretty jealous of these bikers touring the UK!

Then we were off to Bath! Beautiful wee town, it is picture-book perfect. There was even a pug there but I missed the photo of him.

Bad timer photo? Awesome? You decide.

Bath Abbey

During the war, in retaliation for the allies bombing something pretty in Germany, the Germans bombed Bath, cause it was pretty too.

I think this was 'Gay Lane'. Tehe.

Just some of the newer buildings in Bath. I like how they've kept it all on theme, the one in the bottom left is KFC not that you can tell!

The worst bit about tours. Our guy used a hand puppet fox instead of an umbrella. Could you feel more like a child than being head counted in a tour?

Once the guide got us in the Roman Baths, we were free to roam about for 2 hours. The roman baths were pretty interesting, but I did enjoy wandering around the town more I think!

The main baths

The run-off from the baths. You can see the buildup of minerals - quite amazing to think this plumbing has been working for thousands of years! Back home I have to unblock mine every two!

Apparently the baths became popular for the English after Mary something went and drunk some to increase her fertility, then got pregnant.

I thought a man getting pregnant sounded like a pretty good premise for a movie, so it'd be even better as a reality show. So I had a crack.

Metalic and disgusting.

This was pretty amusing. Our coach was behind this bus, and the bus scraped across a 'traffic camera sign'. And kept scraping. Then the back window smashed and the sign popped off the post. The bus sat there for a minute, then he just kept going, broken glass everywhere with passengers in the back and everything! I guess, people got places to be. Can't really see the broken window but there it is.

So yea, Bath was pretty sweet. I even snuck a wee beer in in the sun. Lovely little town, I could easily see a long weekend spent in Bath.

Traffic back to London was insane, three separate accidents! Fortunately I had Judge John Hodgeman podcasts to entertain me.

The tour was great, you learn a lot and see things you mightn't've. But you also have to wait for morons and lose so much control - it's a mixed bag. I think I'll do some more though, takes some of the planning off my plate so that's great.

Yesterday I went with my flatmate and his two Bristol friends to a local bar, and his Bristol friends offered a couch to me if I ever want to visit Bristol! Neat! So I think I'll do that too some time, take a train out there for the weekend or something. 

The Tower of London and London Bridge

Figured I'd go tick another biggy off today - the Tower of London. It was well chokka, guess it always is - even though I got there about 10 minutes after they opened. 

So first stop was a Beefeater tour. The queens bodyguard. He had like 100 people on the 'tour' but it was well worth it. A total champ, this guy - I guess their vocal chords build resistance during their at least 22 years military service, to train them for shouting at tourists every day. He made the execution stories fairly comical, which left us tourists in a compromising position - he's pretending to hack someone's head off very poorly and it's pretty funny how he's doing it, but some folks were actually on the receiving end of all that. 

Beefcake. Beefcake! BEEF CAKE!

Figure on the ramparts. I guess he's doing it all wrong but takes a good photo.

I was wondering how these guys get much guarding done if they can't move their head?

Beefcake told us of the legend, if there're less than 6 ravens at the Tower, the Kingdom will fall. So they keep 8, just in case. And there's 6 guys looking after them.

Folks went ape over the crown jewels.

In the White Tower, there's the 'Kings road' I think it was? Statues of horses and armour and stuff, pretty much the historical answer to those IT bosses who walk you down the hall specifically to see their expensive Iron Man and Alien figurines. BIG MAN.

This dude keeps photobombing my photos, it's getting annoying

Armour.

I thought this was a neat idea. In the past they actually made stuff out of weapons to scare folks and that (Game of Thrones styles - weapons of your vanquished enemies!). So they've done this modern version, which is built out of stuff used in all the different uses of the Tower over the years. So it's built of telescopes and weapons and handcuffs and shit. I guess you get a bit of a fright when you walk around the corner, not sure if it inspires awe.

Straight to the pool room

Couple of bits have been done in Edward I and II styles, Medieval. Different way of doing things fo sho.

Medieval on your ass

And finally, what you bought the internet to see - the crown jewels.

There was a big line for them and I wasn't prepared to wait that long. Those of you who've been will know how long this queue is below, and yea, na. I said to myself, I'll come again with some visiting family member or something - but if not, there's good photos online.

Not queueing that long to see someone elses jewels, I got some right here

The Tower of London is definitely full of history, not all of it that lovely is it! No wonder Shakespeare did so many plays on royalty, it's like days of your lives up in there. Did anyone ever get away with murdering kids in days of your lives?

It's kindof mindblowing to see all this stuff that's like, 1200AD. But then you get desensitised to it, cause it's everywhere. Might invest in some narrative-based non-fiction stuff on the monarchy, maybe.

Popping out the tower, there's the London Bridge. And what tourist wouldn't walk over it? So I walked over it. It worked pretty good I've got to say, I clean went from one side of the Thames to the other.

I do like that, around all these historical landmarks, there're all the modern landmarks. And they're putting up heaps of other neat skyscrapers too, I thought it was supposed to be a recession over here? 

Kaiju suppository.

I've locked and loaded a couple of day trips in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. I do need to devote a little more time to leaving this flat though, and finding a job, so this glut of tourism might be dwindling - I'm saving museums until the school summer holidays are over!

Flat.

Thought I'd take time out from tourist posts and talk to you about flatting in London.

Flats over here are listed in 'pcm', monthly rates, and generally range from £650-800 if you don't want to live in a poohole. So about the same price as my whole house in Wellington for a single room. The landlord doesn't pay the 'council tax' over here though (rates) so you've got to add that on. Thankfully gas, electricity and tv are pretty cheap split between 3/4 people, but yea. 

Also coming from overseas, you have no idea which areas are total shitholes. So every flat you see online, you've got to do so much homework:

• which tube/s are in the area? What zone is it? If it's further out, like zone 3, that's gonna cost you more in commuting. Where are the closest hubs, and are they good ones?
• how big of a shithole is the area? Do some snooping around in Google Street view. Maybe that's just cause I'm in East London haha. But I realise now, you can't take a New Zealander perspective on affluence via the age of cars. The vehicle fleet over here is about 15 years newer than ours, I haven't seen one Sentra anywhere. As an avid '93 Sentra hatchback spotter this is disappointing. Wikipedia has also been quite good with quite in-depth information about suburbs if you're getting serious.
• Once you've done that and promptly forgotten every other suburb you just looked at, you've got to do it over and over again. Google maps is quite handy with its public transport overlay when you check it against the tube map but it's still a pain in the ass. 

There're no fucking landmarks in this city. They're much more subtle than back home - I've learnt that Viccy park looks like a boot. I can usually spot that on a map, gonna have to learn the bends in the Thames I think.

"But Lozza, you've already found a flat!"

That's right. On top of that, I've had the misfortune of being swindled with this flat. The old, 'I'm leaving but the other two are staying', but when you pay them out, 'I just heard the other two are leaving, and the lease is expiring next month' - top stuff. 'And the rent just went up.'

I was in a spot before the V Festival so I still did alright getting in here for a month, but yea - not ideal! I need a permanent home, otherwise I'm always travelling, I'm never settled. I have the option of staying on here, but the landlord is a bit dodgy. He only gives you one of those fake English names foreigners use to get along easier, like 'John' and he is really pushy.

Unless it's homebrew, if it smells funny, I'm not drinking it.

He said he'd pay half the council tax, then when I wrote it into the agreement today he said he wouldn't. He did come around after I called him out on breaking his word - shouldn't have to. Then he tried to pressure me into signing onto a £2,000 a month lease, alone - come on dude. I have been toying with staying on, risking the two new random flatmates, but I think I'm just going to bail and move out, gun for my third flat! Dude's too shifty, the agreement has heaps of bullshit in it too - like £85 for inventory photos, £75 'leaving fee' and £300 'agreement renewal fee' - for what?!

I'm sure this isn't a typical flatting experience over here and I've just had a small run of semi-bad luck. But on the positive side, I've met some lovely people, seen a bit of East London, and I'll meet some other folks in the coming weeks I'm sure. 

So that's my flatting situation over here for you. Bit of a pain in the arse really, I would have liked to be spending this time doing touristy things and catching up with friends, friends I could count on one hand! But the realities of living here instead of being a tourist are always nagging at me, so today I looked at flats and applied for some jobs. Boring. Can't get a bloody bank account until I've got a tenancy agreement with my address on it either, so I'm all cash. All cashed up. 

In other news, I've booked into a Meetup trip next month, day trip to Canterbury and Margate. So that'll be fun, little UK outing! And will head off to the Notting Hill Carnival tomorrow or Monday. Totes mental.

Kew Gardens

It was a beautiful day yesterday, and I'm still all about the sun. I got no sun in Ngaio all winter, so I tried to find something touristy involving a lot of sunshine - and settled on visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens - Kew. It was pretty Kewl! Yes pretty boring thing to do, of ALL THE THINGS I could do in London, but hey. I'm here for ages.

The Palm House

The greenhouses were the neatest bit. I went on a wee free tour for an hour, which was well worth it, learnt heaps that way. They don't actually have a lot of information out and about, there's some in the greenhouses but otherwise you're just wandering around a tidy and massive garden!

Below are some pics from the waterlilly house, that's just one big-ass Amazon waterlilly. Check out the Kewte guy in the foreground.

In da house

Could be a Microsoft Wallpaper

Part of the grounds had Kew Palace, pretty arsey little palace really but I popped in and had a nosey.  It was where King George III retired to when he went BARKING MAD, 1810 or whatever.

Kew Palace

Inside, sparse.

Probably the most interesting bit of this little Palace was that it had been left to fall into a total state of disrepair, and they'd left the top floor in the state it was in, so you could see a lot of the construction stuff. All the pencilled notes by builders long, long dead, quite weird! And being in that state of disrepair highlights the age of the place.

Guess you can't really see there, but the panels have writing all over them

This mosaic thing was fairly interesting, it's built from heaps of different types of wood from all the trees that were smashed up during the 1987 Hurricane. And the sculptor was only 16 at the time, what a pro!

Does that not interest you?!

Marianne North travelled all over and painted like, 34583786975489764596 plants, inadvertently 'discovering' new ones, back in the 1800's. They're wall to wall in this little gallery, proper mental.

Squirrel butt for Dave. Was a great shot but he took off just as I took the photo, little bastard

Japanese stuff

 That Pagoda was one of the tallest structures around London during the war, so they cut holes in the floor and tested out the flightpath of bombs in it. TRIVIA.

All in all, a lovely day in the sunshine, but it's pretty far out out there. A oncer, for sure.